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In our emails, sent once or twice a week, you'll receive:
• alerts on new threats to Georgia's environment
• opportunities to join other Georgians on urgent actions
• updates on the decisions that impact our environment
• resources to help you create a cleaner, greener future

No Bees, No Food

Millions of bees are dying off, with alarming consequences for our environment and our food supply. We rely on bees to pollinate everything from almonds to strawberries to the alfalfa used to feed dairy cows. What happens if the bees disappear? It’s simple: No bees, no food.

Let's give bees a chance

In recent years, beekeepers report they’re losing on average 30% of all honeybee colonies each winter — twice the loss considered economically tolerable.

6,000 times more toxic than DDT

Scientists point to several causes behind the problem, including global warming, habitat loss, parasites and a class of bee-killing insecticides known as neonicotinoids (or neonics).

When seeds are treated with neonics, the chemicals work their way into the pollen and nectar of the plants — which, of course, is bad news for bees and other pollinators. Worse, for the bees and for us, neonics are about 6,000 times more toxic to bees than DDT.

Just one example: After a nearby farm planted corn seeds coated with neonics in 2013, a farmer named Dave Schuit lost 37 million of his bees. “Once the corn started to get planted our bees died by the millions,” said Schuit.

We're up against big agrichemical companies

Given the consequences for our farms and our food, you’d think we’d be doing all we can to protect bees and other pollinators from threats like neonics.

Instead, big agrichemical companies like Dow Chemical, Bayer and Syngenta are fighting to prevent bans. And Syngenta has asked federal regulators for permission to use even larger quantities of these pesticides — as much as 400 times more than currently allowed.

Some governments aren’t letting the big chemical companies push them around. Alarmed by the role these chemicals are playing in bee colony collapse disorder, the European Union has banned several of them; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has committed to phasing them out on the public lands they manage; and Seattle, Minnesota and Oregon have all agreed to take some form of action against neonics.

Some companies are taking action as well. Home Depot and BJ’s Wholesale Club have taken steps to limit plants treated with neonics, label the plants or both. More than 100 businesses sent a letter to the White House urging the Obama administration to do more to protect bees and other pollinators against toxic pesticides. And we’ll continue to urge other retailers to phase out neonics and do more to warn gardeners and other customers.

In order to restore bee populations to health, however, we need the EPA to step up and lead.

Together, we can give bees a chance

Right now, we’re letting big agrichemical companies use more of the chemicals that are known to kill bees just as we’re in the midst of an unsustainable die-off in bee populations. That has to change. Now.

Join us in calling on the EPA to declare a nationwide moratorium on the use of bee-killing neonics.

Issue updates

Atlanta, GA –As shareholders of Tyson Foods, Inc. consider a resolution on Friday that would require the food giant to institute a “water stewardship” policy, new data shows the company regularly dumps a higher volume of pollution into waterways than companies like ExxonMobil and Dow Chemical.

Atlanta, GA—Today the Georgia House of Representative voted down SB 139 by a vote of 67 to 85. The legislation would have prohibited local governments from passing ordinances that would, for example, ban or put a fee on plastic bags.

Industrial facilities continue to dump millions of pounds of toxic chemicals into America’s rivers, streams, lakes and ocean waters each year – threatening both the environment and human health. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), toxic discharges from industrial facilities are responsible for polluting more than 17,000 miles of rivers and about 210,000 acres of lakes, ponds and estuaries nationwide.

Savannah, GA--Industrial facilities dumped 10,132,268 pounds of toxic chemicals into Georgia’s waterways in 2012, making Georgia’s waterways the 8th worst in the nation according to a new report by Environment Georgia Research & Policy Center. The Savannah River and her tributaries received over 5 million pounds of toxic pollution making it the third worst in the country.

Atlanta, GA –Georgia’s power plants still release over 1,154 pounds of mercury, according to brand new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data outlined in Environment Georgia latest report, Georgia’s Biggest Mercury Polluters. Even a small drop of mercury is enough to make the fish in a 25-acre lake unsafe to eat.